RTV Tools

Wednesday, March 30, 2016

Let's face it, sometimes Shared Coordinates can be a pain. Issues may arise when trying to make small adjustments to very large numbers, and that comes up in other places in Revit too. In some cases, using "Specify Coordinates at a Point" has almost no effect, and you need to resort to workarounds like these.

In Revit, if we follow certain steps in a certain way we can solve these issues. It may seem a fiddly, but if you want to fix coordinates on an existing model, perhaps one of these methods will work for you.

On a real project, you will probably have a control model you can use in the workflow below. The control model needs to have some lines showing at the desired Project Base Point position, probably in a Linked View, as well as a SITE fixed named site that has the 'correct' shared coordinates.

Open one of your models to fix

Go to a Plan view

Link in the COORDINATES file Origin-To-Origin

Set Linked view - COORDINATES

Turn on Site - Project Base Point

Select it and 'unclip'

Transfer Project Standards (from the link) - Project Info

Choose 'New Only'

Go to the Location - Site dialog box

Set the SITE fixed to 'Make Current'

Delete your old SITE, and rename SITE fixed to SITE (we have now replaced the shared site coordinate info with that from the control model). Now, to get a moved PBP in the right spot for the project...

Back in Floor Plan view, slightly drag the unclipped PBP away from
the two green lines (the pbp position in the control file), then move it back to exactly that point

PBP should now be fixed

If this doesn't work, you may tryMethod 2 - neutralizing coordinates and re-Acquiring

Select your PBP, unclip it, rightclick and "Move to Startup Location"

Link in a new, blank RVT such as a NEUTRAL_COORDINATES.rvt and Acquire Coordinates from it (this resets coordinates)

Save your file (your PBP should report 0,0 coordinates)

Link in the control model PBP RVT

Acquire coordinates from it

Delete it (yes)

Re-link it again (this is to get around a Revit bug, that sometimes 'shifts' the linked model after acquiring coordinates)

Save your host file (shared coordinates are now set correctly, and the PBP can be moved into place as below)

Select your PBP, unclip it, and move it to the location from the control model. You may need to set up a plan view that has PBP
switched on, and view range all the way down to AHD 0.00.

Both of these methods are somewhat involved, but they may be useful to you in those situations where "nothing else works".